Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question / Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. Manufacturer

by Charles N. Fowler

Mr. Banker: Mr. Lawyer, please hand me that certificate. Here is what it says on its face: "This certifies that there have been deposited in the Treasury of the United States of America Ten Dollars in Gold Coin payable to the bearer on demand." It is perfectly evident, Mr. Lawyer, that this is nothing but a warehouse receipt for ten dollars, stored in Washington subject to the demand of the holder. There is just the same difference between that and the gold coin as there is between a trunk and a trunk check. You would not hold up a trunk check, and tell me that it was a trunk. This certificate is no more money than a trunk check is a trunk.

Mr. Lawyer: You are right, Mr. Banker. There is nothing so absolutely essential in our talk, as illustrated by this incident, as the use of correct, exact language. And I am very glad that you have impressed this fact so indelibly upon our minds at the outset.

Mr. Farmer: Did you say, Mr. Banker, that all the money there was in the United States were the gold coins? Then you said that if you didn't convince the rest of us that that was the fact, you would eat all the other stuff that we call money that we would bring you. Now, it seems to me as though that was just one of your smooth, slick tricks of getting what we have got in our pockets, as usual. How does that strike the rest of you boys? Now, I have a few silver slugs here, Mr. Banker, that will keep you busy chewing until you pass over, if you try that game on us.

Mr. Banker: That is all right, Mr. Farmer, but you wait until you hear me out.

Now, let us agree upon one fact, and that is this, that Uncle Sam over there is not making or coining any other pieces of gold than the four pieces I have just described, and that none of the one dollar or fifty dollar pieces are now in circulation. Do you all agree that that is a fair assumption under the circumstances?

Uncle Sam: Yes, that is a perfectly fair assumption that all of the gold now in circulation consists of the four pieces I am now making, the two and a half, five, ten and twenty dollar pieces. But, if they constitute all the money I have in circulation, I am mightily fooled, and it is high time I was put right.

Mr. Banker: Well, that is what I am going to do. I am going to put you right, for you have not only been fooled yourself, but you've been fooling the people long enough as well.

Three hundred and fifty years B.C., one of the greatest philosophers, and one of the wisest men that ever lived, described the development and evolution of money, and defined what money was better than any man ever has since, I think. That man was Aristotle. Aristotle's account of the origin and definition of money was as follows:

"It is plain that in the first Society (that is in the household) there was no such thing as barter, but that it took place when the community became enlarged: for the former had all things in common, while the latter, being separated, must exchange with each other according to their needs, just as many barbarous tribes now subsist by barter; for these merely exchange one useful thing for another, as, for example, giving and receiving wine for grain and other things in like manner. This kind of trading is not contrary to nature, nor does it resemble a gainful occupation, being merely the complement of one's natural independence. From this, nevertheless, it came about logically that as the machinery for bringing in what was wanted, and of sending out a surplus was inconvenient, the use of money was devised as a matter of necessity. For not all the necessaries of life are easy of carriage; wherefore, to effect their exchanges, men contrived something to give and take among themselves, which being valuable in itself, had the advantage of being easily passed from hand to hand for the needs of life—such as iron, or silver, or something else of that kind, of which they first determined merely the size and weight, but eventually put a stamp on it in order to save the trouble of weighing, for the stamp was placed there as the sign of its value."

Wilbur Aldrich says: "Gold, and no other thing, sustains all the functions of money. Gold is money as soon as it is taken from the earth, without smelting, without refining, without minting and without limitation."